


The Turning Point

by tepidspongebath



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ballet, First Meeting, M/M, is this a meet cute? I am not sure, mystrade, references to The Turning Point with Mikhail Baryshnikov, they were a lot heavier in the first draft, they're all younger in this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23489284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tepidspongebath/pseuds/tepidspongebath
Summary: Greg Lestrade notices someone watching him during ballet practice, and decides to do something about it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: 221B-Consolation Fest 2020





	The Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merelypassingtime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelypassingtime/gifts).



> For merelypassingtime, who sent me a prompt for a Mystrade ballet ficlet. 
> 
> It turned out more Lestrade-centric than I thought it would be, and longer too, and I a little bit fell down the research rabbit hole (I haven't really thought about ballet since I was a very small child and now I have an urgent need to watch _White Nights_ ), and I need to clean up the second part a bit before posting it. Also my first Mystrade. I hope you like it. 
> 
> Stay safe everyone. Wash your hands.

Greg Lestrade had, like any right-thinking working class boy, only started taking ballet lessons under extreme duress and only after a long, drawn out protest, which involved a lot of shouting, door slamming and withheld pocket money. He had thought, with all the conviction one can have at seven, that he would win. He had to. It was a matter of life and death.

His mother, however, thought otherwise.

“You’re going to the bloody ballet class, and that’s final!” she snapped. “It’s the only way Aunt Agatha will pay for St. Ninian’s.”

“I'm not going to no St. Ninny’s!” A month into the argument, and Greg still couldn’t believe his mum wanted him dead so badly. If the other kids didn’t pound him senseless for doing ballet, they’d _murder_ him for going off to the posh public school with the nuns. Come to think of it, the nuns might do him in if the neighborhood boys didn’t get to him first.

He’d told his mum all this, but she’d just insisted it was for his future, not understanding that the only future he could look forward to with ballet was as a greasy stain on the pavement.

“Greg, I asked her if it could be football instead. Or cricket. Or swimming. Watercolors, even. I tried, I promise I tried, but she wants you to do ballet, or no dice.”

“Fuck Aunt Agatha!” Greg screamed. It was the most shocking thing he could think of to say. He’d heard his mum say it, quietly, when she was very upset or angry and ordinary words didn’t work, and for one wild moment, he thought he’d won.

His mum went very pale and tight-lipped, and when she finally spoke, slowly and evenly, Greg knew he was doomed.

“You are going to write to Aunt Agatha tonight. You’re going to tell her thank you for letting you go to St. Ninian’s - I know you know how to say it right - and you’re going to say you’re looking forward to starting ballet lessons tomorrow. And if I ever hear you use that word again, it’s not the other kids you’ll have to worry about. Is that clear? I need to hear you say ‘yes’, Greg.”

And so Greg had gone to his first ballet lesson, though he went down swinging, mainly by sulking in his room and refusing to put his leotard on until the last possible second.

* * *

The only good thing to be said about Greg’s time at St. Ninian’s was that it was short. A little after two years (during which he found the place to be every bit as awful as he expected), Aunt Agatha upped and died.

She hadn’t included Greg or his mum in her will, and since his mum’s cousins weren’t as keen on his education as she had been, Greg’s stint at public school came to an abrupt and merciful end.

The ballet lessons, however, went on.

That surprised Greg as much as anyone. He initially took to ballet like a fish learning to play the tuba in the middle of the Sahara - who would have thought that prancing around in tights could be so hard? But he got better, largely because Miss Browne refused to let him slouch off and you had to be an absolute monster to disappoint a teacher like Miss Browne. And as he got better, he realized that he liked ballet.

He liked his teachers, and most of his fellow students (there were more boys than he thought there’d be - he was quite far from drowning in a sea of tutus). And he enjoyed the happy side effect of acquiring a kick like a mule on steroids and the ability to aim. Once he felled the much larger Ronnie Archer with a well-placed foot to the groin, he had no more trouble from the kids on his street, even if his mother did take him around to the Archers’ house to apologize afterwards.

And he fell in love with the dance itself. There was more to it than being a plot element and/or a handy walking prop to lift ballerinas as needed. It took real skill and grace and a surprising amount of strength, and if you did it right - these were the musings of a somewhat older Greg - you felt like you were flying.

He also fell a bit in love with Mikhail Baryshnikov. His mum (who was only too pleased that something had come of his living under Aunt Agatha’s thumb) insisted they go see a film she thought he’d like because there was ballet in it. Greg couldn’t say he cared much for the story (more of his mum’s thing, all that to-do with Shirley MacLaine - if it had been up to him, he'd have rather seen _Star Wars_ again), but the way that man danced...

It was electric and cool and _sexy_ , devastatingly so, and Greg found his stomach doing an odd, hopeless little flip whenever he came on screen. That was something of a turning point.


End file.
